The Federal Ministry of Justice on Thursday said it saved N4.5 trillion arising from its effective defence of cases and claims against the federal government.
This was disclosed by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami after the federal executive council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa.
Presenting his ministry’s scorecard from 2015 to 2017, Malami noted that the amount was saved as a result of effective defence of court cases brought against the government within the last two years.
According to him, other areas on the scorecard presented to Council had to do with the prosecution of Boko Haram cases which, he said, is still ongoing.
He also confirmed that the Federal Government has put in place a committee saddled with the responsibility of coming up with policies and strategies that will ease off the congestion of prisons in the country.
He stated that over 70 per cent of the inmates are awaiting trials, adding, there are sizeable number that cannot afford to pay limited fine that have been imposed arising from their convictions.
“There are those awaiting trials that have never seen the court room for over five years and above and indeed there are multiple legislation that are before the national assembly that are intended to support the decongestion of prison formation process.”
Malami said his Ministry also made presentations relating to plea bargain to FEC, adding “there are a lot of pending criminal cases in respect of which the accused persons standing trials made offers for plea bargain.”
